One Step Closer to Satisfying the Restless Martyrs

In one fell swoop, a thousand years of muscovite and russian crimes against the Ukrainian nation that brought forth rivers of blood and tears may finally be adjudicated for all the world to see.

Regardless if we ever have the opportunity to watch the hangman pull the lever, dropping putin through the gallows’ trapdoor into oblivion or not, the mere fact of the matter is that people are now aware of the countless russian crimes against Ukrainians that have been rolled up into one formal fitting condemnation.

Friday, March 17, 2023, will live in the hearts and minds of people of good will around the world as the day the International Criminal Court stood on the side of justice and ruled that there is enough evidence to issue an arrest warrant against vladimir putin, the so-called president of russia but in reality its bloody dictator, surpassing the brutality to Adolph Hitler, Josef Stalin, Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milošević, Nicolae Ceaușescu and others.

Almost 13 months after russia again invaded Ukraine and after innumerable atrocities committed against Ukrainian civilians, The Hague issued an arrest warrant for putin, claiming that moscow’s forcible deportation of thousands of Ukrainian children is a war crime. The court also issued a warrant for Maria Lvova-Belova, russia’s self-styled commissioner for children’s rights, on the same charges. The ICC has charged putin with being involved in the deportation of children, adding that it has reasonable grounds to believe he committed the acts directly, as well as working with others.

The court said in a statement that putin “is allegedly responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population (children) and that of unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the russian federation.”

Once in russia, the Ukrainian children, who were abducted from their parents or legal guardians and therefore actually kidnapped, are put up for adoption by russian families and then are given russian citizenship, all of which are in a violation of a range of laws.

The ICC said that its pre-trial chamber found there were “reasonable grounds to believe that each suspect bears responsibility for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population and that of unlawful transfer of population from occupied areas of Ukraine to the russian federation, in prejudice of Ukrainian children.”

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the International Criminal Court's decision to issue an arrest warrant against putin was historic and blamed him for the deportation of thousands of Ukrainian children. “This is an historic decision which will lead to historic accountability,” he said in his nightly video address. The real number of deported children could be far more than 16,000 and their deportations constituted a policy of “state evil which starts precisely with the top official of this state.”

Zelenskyy added, “It would have been impossible to enact such a criminal operation without the say-so of the man at the helm of the terrorist state.”

The announcement provoked a furious response from moscow. Kremlin spokesman dmitry peskov said russia, which is not a signatory of the Rome Protocols that formed the ICC and claims it is not bound by its decisions, found the very questions raised by the ICC “outrageous and unacceptable,” and that any decisions of the court were “null and void” with respect to russia. Russia, the United States and China are not members of the ICC. Despite the warrants, the ICC has no powers to arrest suspects, and can only exercise jurisdiction within countries who are signed up to the agreement that set up the court. In other words, putin cannot leave russia.

“Yankees, hands off Putin!” wrote parliament speaker vyacheslav volodin, a close ally of putin, on Telegram. “We regard any attacks on the president of the russian federation as aggression against our country,” he said.

The arrest warrant against putin and the indelible stain of guilt will be personifications of every crime committed by every russian despot for a thousand years. With putin in the dock or at the gallows or in restricted freedom in russia, he will be encircled by the spirits of all Ukrainian men, women and children killed in this war against Ukraine, Bucha, little Liza, the POW who fearlessly declared “Glory to Ukraine,” the martyrs of previous wars, Bykivnia, Holodomor, Sandarmokh, Bazar, Kruty, Baturyn and other known and unknown killing fields.

Some may say that since putin will never be caught, tried and sentenced, this indictment is meaningless. Nothing could be farther from the truth. From the charges of illegally deporting Ukrainian children to russia during war – a war crime – putin faces other allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The list of the culpable does not end with him. Co-conspirators include lavrov, peskov, shoigu and their lowly naïve cutthroat in uniform who shot civilians. It casts a damning shadow on all who seek audiences with putin and his criminal gang, it raises questions about the integrity of institutions that call russians members such as the United Nations, and it besmirches liberal russians who choose not to denounce putin and renounce russia.

The warrant for the arrest of putin declares before humanity that the president of russia, a member-state of the United Nations, is a criminal and he must be regarded as such by countries, governments and people. He is a wanted man like a common criminal. Russians, especially, can run but they can’t hide from this appellation against their leader and by association their nation.

This warrant establishes that russia’s war against Ukraine is a crime, russia is guilty of war crimes and genocide. Indeed, while they’ll deny and belittle the ICC’s ruling, it will remain an embarrassment for all russians for generations to come.

The world now knows that there is ample evidence to declare that russians lied about why they invaded Ukraine, that they are guilty of indiscriminate killing of Ukrainian civilians and children, that their intention is to annihilate all Ukrainians and subjugate Ukraine, and by association all russians are guilty on all charges.

This empire of criminal cards is finally collapsing on top of the kremlin and its criminal mob. Justified accusations of a wide range of criminal activities, murders, human rights violations against russia are surfacing. A day before the ICC revealed its decision a UN-backed report stated that repeated russian attacks against civilians in Ukraine, including systematic torture and killing in occupied regions, amount to war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity.

The sweeping human rights report, released a year to the day after a Russian airstrike on a theater in Mariupol killed hundreds sheltering inside, including children, marked a highly unusual condemnation of a member of the UN Security Council. Among potential crimes against humanity, the report cited recurrent attacks targeting Ukrainian infrastructure since the fall that left hundreds of thousands without heat and electricity during the coldest months, as well as the “systematic and widespread” use of torture across multiple regions under russian occupation.

To be sure, the world was aware of russian aggression against Ukraine and crimes against humanity. The United Nations had designated russia an aggressor state for its invasion and seizure of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula. In 2016 the United Nations officially condemned russia as an “occupier” of foreign lands just like Nazi Germany and other tyrannical empires were.

Hopefully, the ICC arrest warrant and the UN report will contribute to efforts ban russia from the global table and boost russia’s accountability for crimes committed in the war by individual countries that have assumed the right to apply “universal jurisdiction” to prosecute atrocities, wherever they may take place. And then this will lead to the destruction, dissolution and dismemberment of the russian empire.